Penguin touts Bury Me Vertical as a collection of ‘Almost true stories of rogues and ratbags from the bush and beyond’, an unpretentious description which would doubtless please the doggedly unpretentious Winn, but which understates the variety and depth of his writing. To be sure, there are the promised tales of rogues and ratbags. The title story, which opens the book, is the tale of a couple of beer-chugging larrikins hired to dig an unusual grave for a penny-pinching farmer. Like a modern-day Henry Lawson, Winn tells the story with affection, if not regard, for the hapless gravediggers, and lards his dialogue with harmless vulgarity and inventive ockerisms. Winn often uses a framing device – mates chatting over a beer, say – to create the effect of a series of nested anecdotes, which adds to the casual charm of the storytelling. The yarns are sometimes baggy and long-winded, but that is of a piece with the genre.

Yet Winn is a more versatile writer than one might initially expect. His prose is studded with rich descriptions of the countryside and rural work. An air of wry melancholy permeates many of the stories, as in the tragicomic ‘No Milk, Thanks’, which juxtaposes the lifestyles of two very different farming families; while in ‘Edie’s Pride’, Winn broadsides the reader with genuine tragedy.

Bury Me Vertical – a warm, witty collection – demonstrates that it is not the tallness of the tale that counts, but the truth of the writer’s talent.